More than 5,000 Americans with a rare syndrome simply can’t stop eating-even if it kills them. Around the time Andy Maurer turned 3, his parents realized their toddler had a remarkable appetite. Every meal, he ate every morsel and asked for more. Then they found him scrounging in a trash can and sneaking into a neighbor’s house to raid the fridge.
As he got older, Maurer hoarded food, even raw onions, and once consumed a 1-lb. bag of brown sugar. “I didn’t know what my problem was,” recalls Maurer. “Anything I could get at, I would eat.”